


Remember the Word Forget

by howveryzoe



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: M/M, Post canon, and isn't fun to write, but here i am, dwsa based, i am so sorry about this fic, just understand that this isn't fun, nazism tw, there's a vauge reference to max here have fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-26 05:18:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6225514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howveryzoe/pseuds/howveryzoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes there isn't a light in the darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember the Word Forget

**Author's Note:**

> This ruined my life.  
> Title comes from BARE.  
> This fic exists to hurt Lydia.  
> Yes there's a reason I don't say his granddaughter's name for most of the fic.

He can't remember falling in love.

It certainly didn't happen right away. When they kissed, it was a kiss between two horny boys. As much as Ernst might protest that it was true love, love from that moment on, it was anything but. They wanted each other, sure. There was something more than just lust, sure. But love? Devotion? No. Desire.

They were children at the time. Too young to know what love even was. A fifteen year old who had never been kissed, who had suppressed every desire that had ever taken him. It was easy for a boy like that to confuse it with love. Hanschen had been so scared, he remembers that quite well, so scared that this could all blow up in his face. And there had been something in that kiss. That tasted sweeter than alcohol. Something he couldn't understand himself. Maybe the first flutter, the first page, in their love story.

He remembers standing in Latin class maybe two years later and thinking, without even being conscious of the fact, I love this boy. Thinking it as easily as breathing. Like it had always been there even thought it never had. His face had flushed instantly. That tell tale mark of shame returned as per usual. He told himself it was silly, he was a romantic, etc. etc. etc. But it was there. It had taken root deeply in him.

He wouldn't say "I love you" until almost three years after that day. When he came home from break from university in Berlin. It was Christmas Eve, they were lying in the vineyard again, trying to suspend the minutes they had till they were forced back into their respective homes. Ernst had said it in that habitual way he always did. Kissing every inch of Hanschen's chest, and pausing to look up at him every second. Signing it like some prayer to stop the world around them. Hands desperately clinging at air.

"I love you." Over and over and over.

And Hanschen had let his lips form "I love you too," knowing Ernst couldn't hear and thinking he wouldn't look up. But he had. He meets his eyes for a moment, tracing Hanschen's lips again as if unsure he really saw. And then pulls him closer, squeezing him tightly. Because somehow Ernst is able to know exactly how scared he is.

So that's how it happens. How he finally realizes that his heart has long ago stopped racing because of his hormones. At the age of twenty Hanschen accepts that he is in love.

They never promise each other their futures. It's just decided. The arrangement is set between them as binding as any actual marriage.

Ernst isn't allowed to marry, but Hanschen is told to do so. She's a family friend. Kind, and distant, and innocent enough that she would never suspect. Ernst is in his wedding as one of his groomsmen. His older brother was the best man.

Their meetings get more infrequent after this. Only when his wife isn't home or when he has a business trip. Ernst spends his time taking care of his father and mother. But they stay close. Maybe weeks separate their time together but it is enough for them. They cling to each other tighter than before. Mouths working desperately as if they are trying to eat each other alive. Their hands are always moving, never having enough time to get the words out. It's painful but it works. For a while at least.

Ironically, it's Ernst who ends it.

His parents die about a year after Hanschen gets married. They both got sick, he doesn't even know why he didn't as well. His heart breaks, and Hanschen does his best to comfort him. It didn't matter how much they had hurt him, Ernst was naturally loving and forgiving to flaw. But then he realized he was free. Able to leave the farm and choose what he wants to do. He tells this to Hanschen, bubbling over with excitement the next time they meet.

"I can leave this town! I could study art! Think of it Hanschen I could go anywhere!" He doesn't stop talking, imagining all that he will discover and create. A future he never even imagined. Hanschen smiles at him, clasping his hands to calm him down.

"Will you visit me when you leave?" He asks him jokingly, thinking he knew the answer.

"Visit? Well, I was hoping you could come with me." Ernst signs carefully, practicing the words in his head the whole time.

"With you? What do you mean?" Hanschen asks, brow furrowed, discomfort brewing in his stomach. 

"We're free now, you and I can be together." His face breaks into a huge smile as he says it. "I mean we don't have to hide like this."

"Ernst, maybe you're free but I'm not. I can't just leave my wife. And my family will disinherit me. I'll lose my job. What are you thinking?" Hanschen signs, outraged, his voice rising. "That's absurd."

"You're wife hasn't had children yet. You're still free, who cares what they say? Let's go! We can go right now!" Ernst signs desperately.

"I can't. How can you even ask me that? You know I can't. Don't ask me for that Ernst because I can't give it to you." Hanschen's eyes are cold but he still doesn't get it. "Come back to bed, this is ridiculous. We're not children."

"No."

"What?"

"I said no." Ernst signs slowly rising up. "I'm not coming back to bed."

"I don't understand?"

"I can't live like this anymore! I can't hide from everyone! Can't be your toy while you play the perfect son! I'm dying Hanschen! This is killing me! I love you, I love you so damn much but I cannot do this!" He shouts as he signs, his voice clear and pained. "I'm leaving whether you come or not."

"You're not serious. Ernst it's been over ten years. You aren't really leaving now!" Hanschen cries standing up as well, Ernst has begun putting his clothes on.

"Come with me please then, you're right it's been over ten years. So don't make it end now." He looks at him with those brown eyes and Hanschen melts but not enough.

"I can't you know I can't. Stop this, you're being childish." Hanschen grabs his arm to stop his words but he pulls away.

"Don't touch me." Ernst's movements are harsh and chopped. He's out the door before Hanschen has time to blink.

And he doesn't even call after him. Just sits there, half dressed on the bed. Feeling himself tear apart.

His wife will ask him, of course, why she never sees that sweet Robel man anymore. He will say a falling out and make it clear she shouldn't question. Soon she will give him children, three sons one daughter. And he will cherish them and try to forget. His heart will mend a little.

His heart will break again. The first war takes his oldest son from him, he hadn't even been eighteen. He thinks of Ernst a lot after that but makes no attempt to find him. He never did.

When his wife dies of grief he doesn't invite Ernst to the funeral even though he knows that he might want to come.

When the new "wave" begins to rise and Thea writes him frantic letters, begging for aid, to flee the country, he doesn't attempt to find Ernst. Pushes him from his mind. He gives her money and hopes she and her family will be able to get out. 

He will not let himself slip back into the vulnerability of his youth.

Chancellor Hitler sends both of his sons to war now as well as his daughter's husband. They all live at his house in Berlin. He has long retired from the bank, he's got his money and his fancy house. He watches his only granddaughter, he'd helped name her, grow up while his son, her father, is at war. He writes him letters about her. Describes her to him, out of fear that they will never meet again. He's flying planes over England.

He hears the messages of progress and greatness and wonders what would've become of him had his youth occurred now. 

As the war progresses they huddle in bomb shelters while America sets Berlin on fire. The women shriek "we've done nothing wrong" and he sits by himself, older and neglected, calmer than the rest.

He's lost a lot of his hearing with age. He sees the irony in that too. So maybe that's why when his granddaughter cries he isn't as bothered by it as the others. Her mother tells her to be quiet and she is pushed to a corner alone. But he goes up to her, pulls her close and soothes her.

They were not close before this point but he instantly becomes her keeper. He is the only one, who can get her not to cry during the bombings.

So he decides to teach her, maybe just out of the fact that he can't hear well anymore, how to talk with her hands. Makes her understand that she can show no one what he's taught her. She learns quickly, she is still young. And the more she learns the more he reveals of himself. He tells her of things he hasn't thought of since he was fifteen. Tells her about a girl who just wanted to feel. About a boy with anxious eyes and perpetual sadness. About Melchior who wouldn't ever be quiet and Georg who played piano. He talks about how Otto would work so hard to fit in and about eyes watching them in Latin. About days swimming in the cool lakes and reading Shakespeare in the forest with a sick willowy boy. He talks about his sisters who teased him to no end. About Anna making him laugh and Martha with her strong eyes and upturned jaw. About stumbling Ilse who got lost in the woods. About being an altar boy and learning lies. About people who can't hear and a time when they weren't whisked away from sight. About how his own mother was one of them.

And most of all he tells her about Ernst and the vineyard. Every inch of logic tells him he shouldn't tell a girl, even his own granddaughter, who is in a hitler youth group about his secret love affair from his youth. But paternal instincts trump logic in his books. He lets himself go and spills nearly every detail. She eagerly gobbles them up. Desperate to learn as much as she can. He is made of stories at this point.

But soon she begins to ask him questions. Questions that go deep into his skin. Questions, like any parent, he isn't sure how to even begin to answer.

He's brushing her long blonde hair when she signs up at him one day, "Opa, where did all the deaf people go?"

He stops, not even knowing how to begin to tell her. This is not a conversation to be had over hair brushing. 

"Hitler made them go away." 

"Why?" Anger slightly overcomes her face as she signs, the "y" brushing off her head roughly.

"He didn't want them here." 

"Like the Jews? Why not?"

"Because that's what Hitler does. He takes people away."

"My teacher said Hitler is saving our country."

"You decide that for yourself liebling." He tells her. He still isn't sure how frank he should be with her. Still has that niggling fear within. That feeling of being watched.

She doesn't say anything after that. Stares at him for a little and then goes back to her homework. He goes back to brushing her hair but the earlier easiness is gone. 

A week later, as they huddle in the dark again she looks up at him tentatively.

"I don't think he's saving our country." She signs it quickly, even though no one else in the room knows the language, and isn't looking at them anyway.

Hanschen smiles just a little despite himself.

"Neither do I." He tells her. "But you cannot tell anyone this do you promise?"

"Yes, I promise." She is old enough to understand.

He thinks that might be the end of the questions, forgetting the burning curiosity of youth. But soon the next question comes and he is even less prepared for it.

He's tucking her in one night, her mother out with some ladies from Church, and before he can go to turn out the light she grabs his sleeve, sitting up.

"Can you tell me another story?" Her eyes plead and he dutifully responds. 

"Okay, which one? I think I've told you all I have. All that would be appropriate to tell you at your age anyway." He says it with a smile, his old eyes crinkling.

"Why did Ernst leave? I mean where is he anymore? Did Hitler make him go away too?" 

He knows she means no harm in the question but the older anger and defensiveness briefely rises in him. How dare she ask him that?

He breathes and sits beside her, deciding to tell the truth again. It's more than he was ever given.

"Hitler didn't take Ernst from me. He left by choice."

"Left? Why would he choose that? I don't understand."

"He wanted me to leave and go with him, but I didn't. I was to scared."

"So he just left you alone?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever try to find him?"

"No. Never."

"You should've."

"I should've." He repeats and turns off the light, disengaging before she can press it more.

He tries not to dream of him that night.

She carries his words with her as she walks to school each day, black and red swastikas following her like Hitler's eyes himself. She lets his truths be her guide through all the noise.

It's close to the end of the war when she find him crying.

He had thought no one was home but she got out of school early. He forgot and was in his study. 

She had never seen him cry before and ran to him quickly, wrapping her arms around his neck and sitting on his lap.

"Opa! Opa! Why are you crying?" She asks feverishly, disturbed to see her strong grandfather so weak.

"You weren't supposed to see this." He tells her, pushing her away.

"But I did, please tell me why you're crying?" 

He cannot lie to her. 

"My sister. I just worry about my sister. I don't know what happened to her." He admits.

She has no words of comfort for this and instead cards her fingers through his grey hair, comforting him for once.

"We're losing. You'll find her when we lose right?" She asks it tentatively.

"I don't know. I don't know." He cries, and she hugs him tightly. They stay like that for a while, him not letting her go, stay till she hears her mother get home and it would be improper to hold each other any longer.

When Berlin falls the whole city is in anguish. No word has come from any of Hanschen's sons in months. Now the Russians hang their flags from the rooftops. Hanschen rarely leaves the house and sits with his granddaughter in his room most of the time. It's one of these days when she asks him a final set of questions.

"So now that we've lost are you going to find him?" She asks it with too much innocence for someone of her age. Someone who has seen as much as her. Hanschen, who was reading quietly at this point, hopes he misheard her.

"What? Find who?"

"Ernst. Who else Opa? Who else won't come to you? I mean your sister will look for you but he won't know to." She can feel him tensing and knows this conversation will not be pleasant.

"We haven't spoken in years why in God's name would I look for him now?" Hanschen slaps his book down on the bed and she jerks her head around unnerved. "Why would you even ask me that?"

"Well we're free now. You can find him. You don't have to be afraid anymore."

"Do you think that everything will get better simply because one dictator is gone? Do you think things are really changing for people like me?" His tone is harsh and criticizing, his signs almost militant. 

"No, but you could at least see how he is? I mean who knows what he's been through." 

"I know."

"You do? What how? Did you write him?" Her voice brims with excitement and she leans across the bed.

"No, I just know. He couldn't have survived. You never met him. He was sweet and delicate. Ernst was..." He pauses for a second trying to breathe. "The kindest soul I knew. They don't let people like that live."

"Well maybe he found away-"

"He didn't. And I never want to hear about this again do you hear me? Do you understand?" He grabs her shoulders tightly and she cringes, shutting her eyes a little. "Do not look for him. Do not do this to me."

"But why?"

He lets her go, realizing with shame, that he is hurting her. "Because I cannot survive another heartbreak. I'm too old. Please do this for me. I don't want to know the terrible way he died. I don't want to know what they did to him."

"But maybe he's still alive. Don't you want to know on the off chance he is?"

"I never want you to mention this again. That is what I want." He looks at her harshly and she knows this is the end of the conversation.

It's about a month later when a young man arrives on their door step asking desperately is Hanschen Rilow still lives there. Hanschen comes running down the steps, his heart pounding.

He feels stupid for not guessing what it was. He shouldn't even have come downstairs. A frantic young man asking for him by his childhood nickname could only mean one thing. He greets him in the parlor and feels dread fill his sinking stomach. The man's hair is short and his face sunken. He looks malnourished and his clothes freshly bought.

"Are you Hanschen Rilow?" He says it quickly.

"I haven't been called that in years. Who are you?"

"Sir, my name is Karl Zirschnitz. I was told by my grandmother to find you once I was free." he shits his feet awkwardly.

"And how might that be?" Of course he knows he just won't admit it. Wants to be wrong for once.

"Thea Zirschnitz. I believe she was your sister."

"Where is she?" He can't help himself.

"She's-she's dead sir. In face you're my only relation left."

Hanschen has the urge to fall down. To weep or call for his long dead mother. To slap the boy across his skeletal face.

"Do you need money?" He barks.

"Money? Sir, I-I have so much to tell you. My grandfather was a famous concert pianist, he was speaking out against eugenics and-"

"I don't want to hear it. I will aid you for my sister's sake but I want you out of my house."

"She had things to tell you. She told me what to say! Don't you want to know what happened?"

"No. Give your address to my maid. I'll send you something to get you started. Write to my accountant if you need more. Don't come here again."

In shock Karl grabs his coat and stands indignantly.

"You are all I have left! Sir, please, my family is dead." His voice breaks but Hanschen has turned away and can barely hear him.

"I cannot help you. I am very sorry but I cannot help you." He faces the window, watching the Soviet flag flutter from a distant rooftop. A splash of red in their grey city. "Don't make this any harder."

Karl closes his mouth and leaves the room. On his way out he turns one more time. "I don't want your money. Pig."

Hanschen shuts his eyes tightly. He doesn't move till long after the man has left the house. No one can soothe him not even his granddaughter. He skips dinner.

The next days blur. He finds himself sleeping more and eating less. He looks older each day and rarely shaves or dresses. Though she is often with him they seldom talk. He dreams of barbed wire and doctors and swastikas and Thea and Georg and of course Ernst.

She can't watch it anymore. So she breaks her promise. She steals money from her mother and puts an ad out in the paper. It reads:

"Mr. Hans Rilow inquiring upon the whereabouts of Mr.Ernst Robel. Please write with information."

Following is an address. As she waits anxiously for a response he gets sicker. A fever that won't go.

"It's grief over the country." Her mother says.

"Watch how much he eats." The girl will reply.

One night he calls his granddaughter to his room. His face is almost as sunken as Karl's and as grey as Berlin. His eyes are bloodshot, the only color on his face gleaming like the flags above the city. She sits on the edge of his bed and he grasps her small hands tightly.

"You do everything they say your whole life. Never toe the line, never even scream or feel just once. And then what? What do you get?" His eyes bulge and she feels slightly nauseous. "I"ll tell you what. They take everything anyway. They take your sons and your lover and your sister and friends. They take everyone you ever cared about and you're supposed to bow your head and smile. Well, I'm done. I won't do it anymore. You won't. The second you can, you go to America. You get out. Promise me."

"I promise Opa." She signs it, the air too tense to break with sound. He hugs her tightly once more before letting her go and she rises to head to bed.

"My girl." He signs against her cheek as she stands up. She has an urge to grab his hand instead of walking away but heads off to sleep anyway.

His nurse's screams wake her up. She's new and young and hysterical but her voice is more manic than normal. The girl runs into the hall in her night gown. Her mother doesn't need to say anything. She knows.

Fuck you she wants to say. To break something or yell at her stupid grandfather. Fuck you for doing this to yourself. Fuck you for leaving me. Fuck you for giving up. For being scared.

She sits in his study, attempting to find his smell or a note or some sort of sign when the butler tells her there's a letter for him. From an unknown sender.

She snatches it from his hand, heart racing. Bitterly she tears at the paper. This is what it said:

_Dearest Hanschen,_

_I was shocked to see your ad. I was sure no one was looking for me. After all this time my God._

_I am not good with words and all I would want to say I cannot get out in just a letter._

_But I need to see you. If you wish to meet come to The Friedrich Boarding House and ask for room 3B it's where I stay._

_I seldom leave but if not give your name to the man at the desk._

_I have missed you and have so much to say,_

_Ernst_

She drops the letter to the floor. After all that. The very thing her grandfather had died out of fear from wasn't even true. The sick irony of it all has a bitter poetry to it.

He pushed him away and he finally comes back the day after he gave up. The universe screwing her grandfather over one more time.

She never really decides to meet with him. After the funeral her feet just take her there almost. She's at the boarding house before she even knows it. Rapping hard on his door.

He opens it confused. He is not as she pictured him, but then again her grandfather hadn't seem him since they were much younger. He is very tall and thin, that same undead look that any survivor has. His hair is dark grey and his skin scarred from dirt and age. His eyes, however, still glisten just a little bit with youthfulness. A bit of hope still present.

"Hello, who are you?" He asks it verbalizing, his voice light and higher. No aggression just confusion. He truly hasn't guessed. She finger spells her name slowly and his face contorts even more with confusion.

"Are you related to Hanschen? Where is he? Please come in, have a seat." Ernst says and she sits across from him on a dingy sofa while he sits on a hard chair.

"Yes, he was my grandfather." She signs it slowly, flinching at the pain in his eyes when she flicks her arm back on was. 

"Was? What do you mean?"

"Mr.Robel, my grandfather...he, well he had just found out that his sister died, as did almost her whole family. And he was distraught. He thought you were dead as well. They say he had a fever but I think he made himself sick. He passed away last week." She has cried too much and said the words too many times. Still the finality of them hits her each time she says it.

Ernst says nothing for a moment. Just sits across from her motionless, his big dark eyes peering out at her. Then, with startling frantic jerk, he grasps at his heart and keels over, moaning. She has never heard a person moan in real life. Only in books or the cinema. It hurts her ears and is guttural and broken. Tears are streaming down his cheeks quickly and his chest heaves. She wants to turn away but cannot.

"God!" He signs screaming the word. "I spent this whole time thinking why did I survive? Why did I live through all of that? I have lost everyone. And then I saw his ad and understood why. Or thought I did. And now-now-now who do I have? I don't even have him. Why would God make me survive? Why me? So that I could feel this? So that I could know I lost him too. Christ, christ, christ." His hands stop moving and he places his head in them, his threadbare pants wet now with tears. She does not know whether to go over to him or not. She is too taken aback, and remains frozen to her seat."They're all gone. All of them. Why?"

She sits for a while, for what feels like forever watching him moan and cry and beat his chest. As he begins to quiet down she steps out of the room shamefully and runs home. She didn't even say goodbye.

All night she tears herself up over it. Feeling ashamed over leaving. Over just letting him cry. Over not helping her grandfather enough. Over being alive. The next day she goes back to his hotel room. To apologize maybe. 

"If it's alright with him may I see Mr.Ernst Robel? Can you ring him up?" She asks the man at the desk.

"Don't you know? He hanged himself last night." The man puts it bluntly, death is commonplace these days. She herself can only feel a slight twinge. She barely knew Ernst truly. She feels regret though. Regret that she can't apologize. That she couldn't help someone else. "You're the girl from yesterday yes? He left you this." The man hands her a package carefully wrapped. She takes it gingerly and sits on a bench in the lobby opening it. It contains a note and ticket. She reads the note first.

_I am sorry for leaving you as I am sure you have suffered much as well from your grandfather's loss and I heightened that suffering._

_Understand that I simply have no reason to be here anymore and no hope for myself._

_Thank you for finding me, I am glad I knew._

_Your grandfather, despite what he may have thought, was a great man. I hope you know that and remember him well._

_Please accept this ticket as an apology. I was going to use it for myself but obviously I have other plans._

It's a strange suicide note. Sounding more like a greeting card. She inspects the ticket carefully. It is for a boat to America leaving in a month. And she knows it doesn't matter what her mother says. She will be on it. The perfect meeting of two dead man's plans.

A month later she stands on the deck of a ship, bundled into a yellow coat. She clutches her bad close and looks for a familiar face. Slowly, moving through the crowd she makes her way over to a girl about her age. Her coat is new and her hair just growing in. Her face that telltale sunken greyish look, just beginning to show signs of health and life.

"Are you on your way to New York too?" She asks her, tapping her shoulder. The girl turns around and places her fingers in her ears, beginning to say the word 'deaf.'

Before the girl can finish speaking she has begun to sign for her. "I know the language. Do you?" She asks.

"Yes, my mama taught me in secret." She replies with a slight smile.

"I'm Wendla Rilow." She finger spells it.

"Erna Vanderburg." She responds. Wendla smiles a little. The girl's name is a bizarre coincidence. "I'm going to New York."

"I'll see you there." She signs with a smile. The boat jerks and she grabs her hand, their eyes meeting in a mutual smile. Their story just beginning.

And maybe if you believe in ghosts or spirits or whatever, maybe they aren't alone on that deck, not really. Maybe someone watches them from another corner. Maybe a tall dark haired young man wraps his arms around a smaller blonde haired boy. Maybe they smile and are always with them. Maybe they're all there, all of the children truly. 

I mean if you believe in that sort of thing.


End file.
